Here
continues our excerpt from the Joint Oireachtas Committee Final Report on the
Dundalk bombing of 19 December 1975. The excerpt continues on a further page,
with a link at bottom:

At the end of
his investigation Judge Barron concluded that the bombing of Kay’s Tavern was
carried out by loyalist extremists, most probably associated with the Mid-Ulster UVF.
It was also accepted that some assistance must have been obtained from
Belfast loyalists regarding the theft of the bomb car. Judge Barron was of the view
that it is likely that the attack was carried out on the initiative of a group largely
consisting of UVF members, possibly without the sanction of the UVF leadership.

54) In light of
the information available to it and in consideration of John Weir’s background and
character, Judge Barron said that he accepts Mr. Weir’s claim that the Dundalk
bomb did not come from James Mitchell’s farm at Glenanne.

However, he
believes that the attacks on Dundalk and Silverbridge were coordinated;
that those who carried out the Silverbridge attack came from the ‘Glenanne
group’, and therefore that members of that group must at least have known in advance
of the plan to attack Dundalk. Judge Barron said that as the information
available to the Inquiry suggests the involvement of some members of the security
forces in the Silverbridge attack, this implies that the security forces may or
should have known who was responsible for the Dundalk bombing.

55) Judge Barron
said that the facts and circumstances of the bombing lead almost automatically to
the suspicion that certain prominent loyalist subversives from mid-Ulster were
involved. However, the best efforts of An Garda Síochána and the Inquiry had
not obtained the quality of information to found a conclusion that those
individuals were involved, even as a matter of probability. Taking into account also
that the intelligence relating to the farm of a named person at Glenanne was not
included in the intelligence provided to An Garda Síochána in January 1976 by
the RUC, a suspicion remains that contemporary actions were designed to
limit information relating to security forces collusion in terrorist activity from
reaching the public domain, which in turn did nothing to counteract such activity.

56) Judge Barron
attended before a private meeting of the Sub-Committee which was held on 5 July
2006 and made the following points. He said he was not able to establish the
actual people involved in the incident. The evidence did not all hang together and
therefore he had just set out the information received, without preferring one
bit over another. He underlined that he had not tried to determine who was
responsible, it was not his place to do that. He pointed out that the Northern Ireland
Office have confirmed that as early as 1976 they knew that the farm at Glenanne
was being used for terrorist attacks. In response to a question he said he was not
positive if the original tape from the bomb with a print on it was available.
However, there were photographs of the print and that would be sufficient.

57) Judge Barron
confirmed that the meeting in Belfast referred to in this report was not the same as
the meeting in Belfast that was discussed in the Ludlow report. Judge Barron
said he had contacted the Northern Ireland authorities, he had been promised certain
files, a date had been fixed for a meeting in Dublin, Northern Ireland kept
postponing it and then it never happened. In response to a question he said he had a
small team but he took a long time in doing his investigation and therefore he did
not feel that resources were a problem.

58) In response
to another question he said a prosecution at this stage in respect of the Dundalk bombing
was highly unlikely unless one could get a match with the print that had been
found on the timing device.

59) In respect
of not naming certain names in the report, he said the Gardai did not want to put
peoples’ lives at risk, that a person had right to his good name and that where people had
been named in the report it was due to the fact that some names were in the
public domain already and there was strong evidence that certain people were
involved in criminal activity.

60) In response
to another question, Judge Barron said he could not think of any witness at this
stage who his investigation had not gone after. He made the point that there were
a number of Gardai in Dundalk who were there at the time but they did not
have much to say about the issues in his report. He noted that Mr. Courtney and Mr.
Corrigan were the two members of the Gardaí who had contact with the RUC and
were the key witnesses.

61) A number of
persons who appeared before the Sub-Committee made observations about Judge
Barron’s report and his methodology.

62) One of the
points Mr. MacGuill, Solicitor for the Watters and Rooney families, made was that a
shortcoming of the whole Barron process was that none of the material that he
had in his possession was made available to the families.

63) Ms. Margaret
Urwin expressed surprise that some information was not included in the Barron
report. Justice for the Forgotten sourced two important photographs from the
archives of The Irish Times,
one of which was taken at the scene of the bombing in
Dundalk and another taken at the scene in Castleblaney. The Dundalk picture was
taken on the night of the bombing and the Castleblaney picture was probably taken
the day after the explosion. Both photographs depict members of An Garda Síochána
examining fragments of the bomb mechanisms without wearing gloves.
In one of our later hearings Detective Inspector Joseph Kinsella from the Garda
Technical Bureau explained that it is impossible to get finger marks off
corners of objects and that the officers in the photos were holding the items in
accordance with the common practice at the time.

64) Ms. Urwin
also pointed out that Mr. Justice Barron does not make any link between the
Dublin Airport bombing on 29th November
1975 and an earlier incident at
Dublin Airport in which the son of a leading UVF member was detained. Two
young loyalists were arrested at Dublin Airport on 10 September 1975 and charged
with loitering with intent to commit a felony. They were held and questioned
in the Bridewell Garda station and brought to court.

65) Judge Barron
made it clear that he had a number of unanswered questions:

Page 59:
questions he asked about UVF bases in the murder triangle have not been answered by
the authorities in the North.

Page 60: he
requested a statement which has yet to be provided from the person who owned the
bomb car.

Page 61: there
is a list of a series of requests on ballistics, to which there has yet to be a
response.

Page 68:
questions on fingerprints and proper DNA comparisons are listed as having failed to
be addressed.

Page 90:
questions put to the then Director of Public Prosecutions (now called the Public
Prosecutions Service) have not yet been answered.

66) The
Sub-Committee wishes to express its gratitude to Judge Barron both for his report and also
for his attendance before us. It should be remembered that all of the Barron
reports have been frustrated by the absence of any real co-operation they did not
have much to say about the issues in his report. He noted that Mr. Courtney and Mr.
Corrigan were the two members of the Gardaí who had contact with the RUC and
were the key witnesses.

61) A number of
persons who appeared before the Sub-Committee made observations about Judge
Barron’s report and his methodology.

62) One of the
points Mr. MacGuill, Solicitor for the Watters and Rooney families, made was that a
shortcoming of the whole Barron process was that none of the material that he
had in his possession was made available to the families.

63) Ms. Margaret
Urwin expressed surprise that some information was not included in the Barron
report. Justice for the Forgotten sourced two important photographs from the
archives of The Irish Times, one of which was taken at the scene of the
bombing in
Dundalk and another taken at the scene in Castleblaney. The Dundalk picture was
taken on the night of the bombing and the Castleblaney picture was probably taken
the day after the explosion. Both photographs depict members of An Garda Síochána
examining fragments of the bomb mechanisms without wearing gloves.
In one of our later hearings Detective Inspector Joseph Kinsella from the Garda
Technical Bureau explained that it is impossible to get finger marks off
corners of objects and that the officers in the photos were holding the items in
accordance with the common practice at the time.

64) Ms. Urwin
also pointed out that Mr. Justice Barron does not make any link between the
Dublin Airport bombing on 29th November
1975 and an earlier incident at
Dublin Airport in which the son of a leading UVF member was detained. Two
young loyalists were arrested at Dublin Airport on 10 September 1975 and charged
with loitering with intent to commit a felony. They were held and questioned
in the Bridewell Garda station and brought to court.

65) Judge Barron
made it clear that he had a number of unanswered questions:

Page 59:
questions he asked about UVF bases in the murder triangle have not been answered by
the authorities in the North.

Page 60: he
requested a statement which has yet to be provided from the person who owned the
bomb car.

Page 61: there
is a list of a series of requests on ballistics, to which there has yet to be a
response.

Page 68:
questions on fingerprints and proper DNA comparisons are listed as having failed to
be addressed.

Page 90:
questions put to the then Director of Public Prosecutions (now called the Public
Prosecutions Service) have not yet been answered.

66) The
Sub-Committee wishes to express its gratitude to Judge Barron both for his report and also
for his attendance before us. It should be remembered that all of the Barron
reports have been frustrated by the absence of any real co-operationfrom the British
security forces. Obviously this denial of co-operation impacted adversely on
Judge Barron’s ability to establish the truth. In addition Judge Barron had no
powers to compel anyone to attend before him. This all necessarily limited the
scope of what he could do. We are satisfied that within the scope of his powers and
of the co-operation that he got, Judge Barron addressed the matters as fully
as he was able to.

Chapter 3

Collusion

67) In our
previous reports the Sub-Committee laid heavy emphasis on the role of collusion. Why
do we continue to emphasise it? Mr. MacGuill, solicitor for the Watters and
Rooney families, put it well when he said that: “We are not talkingtheoretically
about cover-ups in the 1970s we are talking about a culture ofsecrecy and a
grudging handing over of information that pertains to this day.”

68) We note that
in some of the incidents in question collusion seems to be almost beyond question.
For example, in respect of the Miami Showband murders three serving members
of the UDR were convicted and two other serving members of the UDR
accidentally blew themselves up at the scene of the attack.

69) When he
attended before us Judge Barron explained that he felt that he could not turn inferences
into particular facts. However even on this cautious basis, we note that at page 113
of his report he found that there was no doubt that collusion between members
of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries existed in many instances.
He stated that: “It was not just a matter of a few bad apples, as suggested by the
Northern Ireland authorities.”

70) Judge Barron
then proceeded to list various incidents that confirm that collusion was taking place
during the time of the Dundalk bombings. These included the convictions of
three UDR members for their part in the Miami Showband murders and the
conviction of three RUC officers in connection to the attack on the Rock Bar. Judge
Barron continued: “These and other incidents paint a clear picture of collaboration
between members of the security sources and loyalist extremists.

The inquiry
would be shutting its eyes to reality if it accepted that such collaboration
was limited to the cases in which collusion has been proven”.

71) Despite this
acknowledgement, Judge Barron reached the following conclusion in respect of
collusion in the Dundalk Bombing:

“Clearly,
if what Mr. Wylde says is correct, then it is possible that some

members of
the security forces could have supplied loyalist paramilitariesknowledge of
the security forces.

Both of
these scenarios place a certain level of responsibility for what

happened in
Dundalk with the security forces in Northern Ireland – at bestthrough an
inadvertent failure to clamp down on the source of theexplosives
used; at worst through deliberate collusion between certainmembers of
the security forces and the extremists who planned and carriedout the
bombing.

But without
further information, the issue of whether collusion took place in

relation to
the Dundalk bombing cannot be resolved by reference to thenature of
the explosives alone.” (page 132 of his report)

72) A number
of the persons who addressed the Sub-Committee took a different view

and felt
that Judge Barron had been too restrained in his findings on collusion. Forexample, Ms.
Margaret Urwin of Justice for the Forgotten stated that:

“The
committee heard such compelling evidence from all of the witnesses

present
yesterday that members could be left in no doubt that collusion wasforces.”

Ms. Urwin
pointed out that Judge Barron had set the bar very high in respect of

collusion
and reminded us that in a legal sense and in international law theprovision of
cover for terrorists would be regarded as an act of collusion. In hisreport on
the murder of Pat Finucane, Judge Peter Cory stated that collusionincludes the
pretence of ignorance or unawareness of something one oughtmorally or
officially or legally to oppose and to fail to take action against a knownwrongdoing
or misbehaviour. Judge Peter Smithwick, in his opening statement atthe public
tribunal of inquiry set up to inquire into an allegation of collusion intothe murders
of RUC officers Breen and Buchanan, said that the issue of collusionwould be
examined in the broadest sense of the word. He said that while itgenerally
means the commission of an act, he was of the view that it should alsobe
considered in terms of an omission or a failure to act. Ms. Urwin continued:

“Mr.
Justice Barron in his conclusions seems almost Jesuitical in his

arguments on
collusion. He accepts that collusion occurs betweenhave
absolute proof that collusion occurred in the case of Silverbridge.”

addressed
the Sub-Committee on the topic of collusion. They offered invaluableinsight to
the Sub-Committee by providing a ballistics report that charted the linksbetween guns
used in various terrorist attacks on both sides of the border. Beforeproceeding
to address the committee on several points relating to collusion, theysummarised
their position as follows:

“It is our
submission, first, that the fatal bomb attacks in Dundalk on 19

December
1975 and in Castleblayney on 7 March 1976 were carried outin Glenanne,
County Armagh. Second, the British Governmentfacts
surrounding these incidents.”

74) They
complained that in written submissions to the European Court of Human

Rights the
British Government had tried to downplay the role of collusion. ThePat Finucane
Centre outlined that this clearly suggests that the BritishGovernment
had deliberately failed to admit the reality of the situation.

75) At the
outset of his address to the Sub-Committee, Mr. O’Connor summarised the

outcome of
the investigation conducted by the British authorities in 1978:

“…
according to Mr. Justice Barron, he has been informed by the Public

Prosecution
Service in the North that out of the 1978 investigation were toincluded
bombings, murders and so on. I am not going to name anybody.

We have to
ask ourselves what actually occurred and actually came out of

the 1978
investigation. What actually emerged was one conviction forsentences in
court.”

76) In
response to Mr. O’Connor’s submissions Deputy Lynch asked how early the

British
Government knew of infiltration of the UDR. The Pat Finucane Centreoutlined
that in the Public Record Office it had discovered a number ofdocuments
marked ‘weapon losses’. They detailed each occasion on whichweapons were
lost, beginning in 1971. Behind a significant number of thosedocuments on
the right hand side the words ‘collusion suspected’ were marked.

According to
them, it appears that by 1973 the British Government was aware at a

most senior
level that it had a serious problem with the UDR. However, by 1974proposals
were made by the Ministry of Defence to the Secretary of State forNorthern
Ireland to increase the intelligence gathering role of the UDR. In otherwords, just
one year later, it was official policy to increase the UDR’s role on theground in
gathering intelligence, despite the fact that up to 15% of the regiment’smembers were
believed to be loyalist paramilitaries.

77) The
Sub-Committee was referred to an original British army intelligence

document for
the Ministry of Defence entitled Subversion in the UDR and dated1974 (it is
likely to have been from the first half of that year), which was from theNational
Archives in Britain. According to this document “It seems likely that asignificant
proportion (perhaps 5% - in some areas as high as 15%) of UDRVolunteers
or UVF”. It further states that following an arms raid on a base inBelfast at
Lisley Drive in October 1972 where a substantial number of weaponscame into
the hands of loyalist paramilitaries that it subsequently transpired thatthe guard
commander on the night of the raid had nine previous convictions fordeception,
had spent a period in jail and had been arrested in September 1972 forriotous
behaviour outside Tennant Street RUCstation
following the shooting oftwo men by
security forces in the Shankill and the arrest of a UDR-UDA leader.

He had one
UDA trace and three separate reliable reports indicated that he was a

member of
the UVF. That was the UDR guard commander in one of theirimportant
armouries in Belfast. It further states that there can be little doubt thatsubversion
in the UDR has added significantly to the weapons and ammunitionstocks of
Protestant extremist groups. In many cases ex-UDR weapons are theonly
automatic and semi-automatic weapons in their possession. What makes thisdocument so
significant is that it is a Ministry of Defence evaluation.

78) The
Sub-Committee was also referred to the minutes of a meeting held in

September
1975 shortly after the Miami Showband murders and the murders oftwo GAA
supporters at Altnamackin. By that stage it was known that the MiamiShowband
massacre had been carried out by UDR members. A briefing was heldwith Airey
Neave, opposition spokesman for the Conservative Party on the North;

State, and
Harold Wilson, the then Prime Minister. At the meeting the futurePrime
Minister was informed that the RUC was not to be trusted. The minute ofMrs.
Thatcher’s call on the Prime Minister on 10 September 1975 is dated 11September of
that year. It sets out on page 3 that the Secretary of State was moreworried
about sectarian murders than about the bombings in Belfast and that itwas
unfortunate that certain elements in the police were very close to the UVFand prepared
to hand information to, for example, Mr. Paisley. It states the army’sjudgment was
that the UDR was heavily infiltrated by extremist Protestants whocould not be
relied upon to be loyal in a crisis. The regiment which could not berelied upon
in a crisis was mobilised in south Armagh in the wake of the attacks atDonnelly's
Bar, Kay's Tavern, on the Reavey and O'Dowd households and theKingsmills
massacre.

79) In
response to a question from Deputy Lynch the Pat Finucane Centre said that

memos from
the British side had not disclosed any vigorous questioning of Britishofficials by
officials from this jurisdiction around the issues of infiltration of thesecurity
forces.

80) Justice
for the Forgotten sent the Sub-Committee a number of documents which it

had obtained
in respect of the allegation that four members of the RUC inPortadown
were also members of the UVF. These were as follows:

(i) Telegram
dated 20 August 1975 from Callaghan at the Foreign and

Commonwealth
Office (FCO) to the British Ambassador to Ireland, SirArthur
Galsworthy. It recorded that the Irish Ambassador, Dr O’Sullivan,had called
that day on the Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Officeand stated:

“Dr
O’Sullivan’s main purpose was to transmit orally a quote highly

confidential
unquote report which had reached the Commissioner ofPortadown
area were also members1 of
the UVF and had beenactively
engaged in recent terrorist operations in the so-called murdertriangle
(Portadown – Dungannon – Aughnacloy). He said that he hadno names or
further details to offer. The Commissioner had to becareful to
avoid disclosing what was obviously a particularly delicatesource: and
it was for this reason that he had decided against passingthis
information direct to the Chief Constable of the RUC. As it was,knowledge of
the report was being closely restricted in Dublin to theMinisters
for Justice and Foreign Affairs and one or two officials.”

The telegram
records that a Mr Orme had replied that this allegation came as

a complete
surprise, that it would be investigated immediately but that itwould be
helpful if some supporting details could be passed on.

(ii) Telegram
dated 22 August 1975 from Sir Arthur Galsworthy to FCO

which states
that he had called on Garvey that morning and told him thatthey were
very anxious to follow up the report but needed further details toenable them
to do so. The reply from Garvey is indistinct.

(iii) Telegram
dated 28 August 1975 from Sir Arthur Galsworthy to FCO

which states
that Donlon had called that morning to say that the Irishgovernment
wanted the matter dealt with through diplomatic channels ratherthan police
channels. Donlon is recorded as saying that there were no furtherdetails that
could be made available. It continues:

“When I
probed as to whether they had further details Donlon stuck to

this
formulation, giving me the impression that they have some detailcould see
precious little that we could do without some further detail.

This was why
I had sought it on instructions.”

The telegram
speculates as to the reason for what it describes as “the

coyness of
the Irish” about revealing any of the details and suggests that incase the
Irish try to make capital out of any alleged failure to pursue thematter the
Irish Ambassador to London should be informed of the need toprovide
detail.

1

This
correction to the telegram was made in one sent the following day. The first
version had merelydescribed
them as supporters of the UVF